Ward-Kovalev 2 could have been bigger says Hearn

By Jeff Aranow: British promoter Eddie Hearn thinks the promotion of the Andre Ward vs. Sergey Kovalev 2 fight last Saturday night could have taken advantage of a lot of different things to make it a much bigger fight than it turned out to be. Hearn thought the fight should have brought in twice the PPV numbers that the previous Ward vs. Kovalev fight pulled in last November.

That fight did 160,000 buys on HBO. The rematch is rumored to be around 130,000 buys on HBO. That’s a disappointment for a fight that had the elements to be a huge event. Hearn says he would have made sure Ward and Kovalev spent more time together for media events so that the boxing public could see them together. Hearn also would have put a spotlight on Ward’s trainer Virgil Hunter and Kovalev’s promoter Kathy Duva, because he thinks they would have made it more interesting for the fans to hear their thoughts.

Ward won the fight by an 8th round knockout. The win was controversial to a certain extent due to some of the last 3 punches Ward threw appeared to stray low. Referee Tony Weeks didn’t give Kovalev a chance to recover from the low blows. Weeks waived the fight off.

Hearn says that if Weeks thought some of the punches were low, then he should have given Kovalev time to recover, which he didn’t do. If Weeks thought none of the punches were low, then he should have given Kovalev a standing 8 count.

Tonight, HBO Boxing will be televising a replay of last Saturday’s rematch between Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev. The start time is at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

The buildup for the Ward-Kovalev 2 rematch was hampered by the two fighters not getting together during the broadcast for the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight on HBO on May 6. Ward and Kovalev were supposed to meet and talk during the broadcast about their fight on June 17. It would have been a perfect chance for them to discuss their fight in front of a large audience, as the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight brought in over 1 million buys. It was a missed opportunity.

“I kind of expected a lot more,” said promoter Eddie Hearn to IFL TV about the Ward vs. Kovalev 2 rematch. “You got 2 guys that hate each other. It’s not hype. They hate each other. What do you do in that situation? You get in front of each other as many times as possible,” said Hearn.

With Kovalev and Ward disliking each other the way they did, it might have made it all but impossible to have them be involved in more meetings with the boxing media than they had.

Kovalev, 34, walked out of the final press conference after saying a few words to the media. He didn’t stick around to be interviewed or to face off with Ward. I’m not sure if Kovalev understood how he was shooting himself in the foot by not being around for the media to interview him and take pictures. Perhaps he didn’t career. This was Kovalev’s big moment to take advantage of the fan interest in the rematch, and he couldn’t be bothered to stay around.

He walked out of the presser, so they really don’t have a chance to engage,” said Hearn in remarking how Kovalev walked out of the final presser for the fight.

“The key when you have animosity is you let them spend time with each other,“ said Hearn.” Let the public feel the rivalry. You can’t feel the rivalry when the only time they were together was the press conferences, the final press conference and the weigh-in. You’ve got a guy that could spike the pay-per-view through his involvement,” said Hearn about Jay Z. “No special media involvement. No turning up at the events. It’s weird, which makes me think there is no long-term strategy for Roc Nation in boxing,” said Hearn.

It’s too bad Hearn wasn’t involved in the promotion for the Ward-Kovalev 2 rematch. That wasn’t possible given that he doesn’t promote either fighter. I don’t know that Hearn would have been able to do much more to drum up interest in the rematch between Ward and Kovalev no matter what he tried. Ward and his promoters at Roc Nation might have given resistance to Hearn if he tried to push for certain things like extra meetings, and if he tried to take over the promotion.

Roc Nation was the lead promoters for the rematch, so it’s not as if Kovalev’s at Main Events could have pushed through different ideas they had to make the fight bigger. Hearn might have been ignored if he had attempted to increase the interest in the fight. If you’re not the main promoter for the event, you don’t have as much pull to get your ideas acted on.

It was going to be a tough sell to try and get the boxing public to purchase the rematch between Ward and Kovalev in higher numbers than in the first fight. I don’t think Hearn realizes that the first fight between Kovalev and Ward wasn’t a great fight to watch. There was a lot of holding by Ward, and not much slugging. It was 12 rounds of boxing. The outcome was controversial with Ward winning.

There wasn’t a lot of excitement after the fight ended. Fights like that don’t usually bring in a lot of interest in rematches. Now if Ward and Kovalev had stood in center ring and slugged for 12 rounds in the first fight last November, then the rematch would have had a better shot at doing well in terms of the PPV numbers. That didn’t happen though. The first fight was a tactical one with a lot of holding, jabbing and body shots on the inside.

“What did the first pay-per-view do? 160, 170,000?” said Hearn in talking about the first Ward-Kovalev fight last November on HBO PPV. “I’ll be surprised If that did more. When that fight was made, I said that would do double next time. It would if I were involved promoting. There were so many different dynamics in that fight that you could have exploited,” said Hearn.

I don’t think Hearn would have been able to change anything in making the Ward vs. Kovalev 2 fight a bigger one. If Ward and Roc Nation dragged their feet with every idea that Hearn had to try and make the rematch bigger, then he’d have been talking to himself and would have gotten nowhere at all. It would have been nice if the promotion were done differently. I don’t think it was feasible with the fight and these two promotional companies. Hopefully, Ward’s fights in the future do better numbers.

I don’t know if they will if he stays at light heavyweight. Ward might need to move up to heavyweight to try and challenge Anthony Joshua for him to be involved in a fight that does big numbers on PPV. You can’t sell a third fight between Ward and Kovalev. That’s dead on arrival, I think.

Ward doesn’t seem to be jumping up and down at the thought of fighting Adonis Stevenson, so that fight is probably not going to ever happen. If Ward moves up to cruiserweight, the only guy that can bring in a lot of buys is Tony Bellew. That’s not a fight that can realistically happen right now. Bellew wants a rematch with David Haye. If not him, then he wants to fight for a heavyweight title.

“You can’t deny that he hit him low,” said Hearn about Ward hitting Kovalev low in the 8th. “He should have had a count. If you really thought it wasn’t a low blow, he should have been given a count. If the referee did think it was a low blow, he should have been given time to recover. Those are the two things that should have happened. The stoppage shouldn’t have happened, but he was done,” said Hearn.